Chapter 3.2

The detective is always right there

About fifteen minutes later…

"According to my calculations, we'll overtake our target in approximately six minutes and twenty seconds," SIESTA murmured to me over her shoulder. We'd left the underground tunnel and were riding down a coastal road. There were no other people or vehicles in sight.

"Once we catch up to them, we'll be dealing with the Assassin and an agent, huh?"

Of course we'd known that when we set off. Still, the thought of how tough the enemies up ahead were going to be made me tense. Especially Fuubi. As a Tuner, she'd be as powerful as Siesta and Scarlet.

"There's no need to get so worked up," SIESTA said, still gripping the handlebars. "All you'll have to do is fight alongside Charlotte, Kimihiko."

"? But Charlotte's the one we're fighting, right?"

"Well, that's true too, but…" SIESTA was being oddly evasive. Like the former ace detective, apparently this robot wouldn't just come out and tell me the important stuff.

"By the way, where's that thing you've always got?" Since I was holding on to SIESTA's waist, I'd noticed that something she ordinarily wore on her back wasn't there.

"Oh, that? I gave it to an acquaintance a little while ago."

"Just like that? Do you know how important Siesta's memento is?" "She really seemed to want it, so I thought it might be all right."

"This acquaintance who 'really wanted' a musket is a pretty dangerous character, too." I dunno who she was, but that's not a friend I'd want.

"But do you have any ideas about how to beat those two when we don't even have a weapon?" I asked SIESTA, speaking over her shoulder.

"Hm? Not really, no." "What, you don't?!"

She'd sounded so confident this whole time that I'd just assumed she had a plan…

"Only…"

"Only what?"

"You've got one, don't you, Kimihiko?" As she spoke, SIESTA didn't look back.

"Well, sort of." It was too clumsy to qualify as a strategy; it was more like a last-ditch Hail Mary. And so—

"It doesn't sound as though you're going to tell me about it."

And I didn't. Besides, although I couldn't pin down exactly why… I had the feeling she'd stop me if I did.

A short while later… "Kimihiko, over there."

A road on the cliff's edge, with the ocean visible below. A motorcycle was racing down the road ahead of us. SIESTA sped up, pulling closer, and then we could see familiar red and blond hair.

"Kimizuka…"

Charlie, who was riding in back, noticed us closing in behind them. "… Why did you come after us?" She narrowed her eyes slightly, her blond hair streaming in the night wind.

"The truth is, I wanted to see you again."

"Ugh, so pretentious. It's been a year and you still haven't gotten your driver's license?"

"SIESTA, feel free to ram her."

"I was also wondering why you weren't driving, Kimihiko, since you're the man."

"Hey, I'm not sexist."

Even though it completely wasn't the time, we joked around with each other the way we always did. Meanwhile, our bike drew up alongside the other.

"What, that robot still isn't broken?" Fuubi glanced back, mocking us. "Yes, I'm particularly good at playing dead." SIESTA responded with a joke

she'd picked up directly from the original.

"Ha! I guess I might as well make this into a car chase."

With a roar, Fuubi gunned her engine. Undaunted, SIESTA sped up as well.

…Except just as our bike passed in front of a white lighthouse that stood on the cliff's edge…

"Do it."

On Fuubi's orders, Charlie turned back, took aim, and fired her gun. "…!"

SIESTA leaned to tilt the bike; I copied her, and we managed to evade. "Now you've done it," SIESTA muttered, a little aggressively. And then— "Launch missile."

She pressed some sort of button near the bike's hand grip. "…! Charlotte, bail!"

"Huh?"

The next instant, our motorcycle fired a small guided missile. The missile struck home, and it went up in flames. The blast rocked our motorcycle, too; we skidded out and went tumbling over the asphalt.

"That was overkill…!" Forcing my aching body to move, I grabbed the guardrail and pulled myself up.

"That's the Sirius Version Beta for you. Excellent firepower." "Look, maybe she got us once, but even for payback that was ugly."

Flames were blazing out of control on the other side of the street. I could see Fuubi lying on the ground nearby. This hadn't actually solved the problem, had it? With that thought, I started to go closer, and that's when it happened.

"Kimihiko!" A gunshot.

SIESTA had shoved me out of the way, protecting me from the bullet. From beyond the black smoke, the agent was closing in.

"…!"

As if she was cutting through the wind itself, Charlie slashed at us with her saber.

"I'll do it. Get back, Kimihiko."

Instead of her musket, SIESTA took a blade that looked like a rapier from some hidden recess of her dress and prepared to fight back.

"Charlotte Arisaka Anderson. I've heard you're extremely skilled with a gun. Are you sure this is how you want to fight?"

"Against you, this way is better." Charlie brandished her sword as if she knew bullets wouldn't work on SIESTA.

Under the lighthouse, out in the sea wind, the two struck at each other in a cacophony of metallic clangs, and the fight unfolded at a speed no normal human could process.

"…! First that vampire, now you. There really are a lot of irregulars around here," Charlie spat out irritably.

"Irregular? I'm not sure that's the best way to think about it."

"What, you're planning to lecture me? Now, when you're even dressed like Ma'am…!"

"No. I don't have that right. However, if this were Mistress Siesta…" As SIESTA spoke, she was facing down a blade that was larger and thicker than her own sword. "I don't believe she would have looked outside herself for reasons something hadn't gone her way."

As she delivered that sound argument, she struck back.

"…!" SIESTA's sword skills forced Charlie to put some distance between them. "…You always were like that." Charlie bit her lip and spoke in a strangled voice, as if she was remembering someone else through SIESTA. "I first met Ma'am five years ago. At the time, I wasn't working under Fuubi Kase yet, and a certain organization had ordered me—to assassinate Siesta."

This was something I hadn't known about Charlie and Siesta. I had heard that she'd met Siesta before I had, but I'd never asked them for details.

"I obeyed my orders and tried to kill her…but it didn't work. I'd failed in my mission. Do you know what that means for an agent?" Charlie's question wasn't directed at anyone in particular.

If I were going to answer…I would have said that an agent who failed to carry out an operation would be killed by their organization. Especially if they'd botched an assassination.

"I knew what my fate would be. If my target didn't kill me in retaliation, the organization certainly wouldn't forgive my mistake. I thought my brief life was over. But…" Charlie hung her head. "As I started to lose hope, she told me, 'I'll make it look as though I died here, so you'll be all right.' I was her enemy, but Ma'am protected me."

…Yeah, that sounds like Siesta.

Sometimes she'd just decide to protect people, to save them, independently of her role as a detective. It was as if she thought of everyone besides herself as a client.

"She said, 'In exchange, I want you to help me out with jobs once in a while.' To seal our contract, she gave me this blue pendant." Charlie squeezed the pendant that always hung around her neck.

Siesta had probably asked for Charlie's help in order to protect her. Siesta

was a Tuner, and if Charlie was affiliated with her, nobody but the best of the best would have been able to touch her.

"Ma'am was always like that. She protected me. Even when she died last year, she'd already made arrangements for me to start working under another Tuner immediately. It was as if she'd known it was going to happen."

"…And that Tuner was Fuubi Kase?" Charlie didn't deny it.

Even after death, Siesta was sheltering her.

"That hasn't changed. Even as an android, you haven't changed a bit." Charlie's voice was trembling slightly.

It wasn't because she was crying, though.

"You're still holding back when you fight so you won't kill me!" When she raised her head, her face was suffused with anger.

"Why?!" Tightening her grip on her saber, Charlie rushed at SIESTA. "Why are you holding back?! Why won't you get serious?! Why are you still— Why are you trying to protect me again?!"

As SIESTA parried Charlie's ridiculously fast swordplay, her cool expression didn't flicker. She didn't strike back any more than she had to, though. She stayed on the defensive.

"A year ago, I was so helpless. And so I swore…this time, I'd take SPES down in Ma'am's place. No matter what kind of unfair things happened to me under that other Tuner, I promised I'd be the one to avenge Ma'am… And yet—" She took an aggressive step in. "I can't even beat you, and you're just a machine! Why?!"

Charlie swung her sword to the side. However…

"Your movements are hardly efficient. When you get emotional, you can't exert even half your true strength." Bending backward, SIESTA evaded the blade. Then, in an economical motion, she swung her rapier and knocked Charlie's weapon out of her hands, sending it behind her.

"…! In that case!"

In the next instant, Charlie's eyes were on me. "I'll do anything to win."

She drew her gun from the small of her back, taking aim at me. "Kimihiko!"

Staying low, SIESTA got between me and Charlie and sent the gun flying with her rapier. But—

"I knew it. You really can't kill me." Somewhere in there, a second gun had appeared in Charlie's left hand. "It's over."

"..."

SIESTA was on her knees. The muzzle of Charlie's gun was pointed at her forehead.

The situation was dire. Even SIESTA couldn't turn this one around.

And if that was how things stood… "Charlie, can you really shoot?"

I hadn't been any use at all so far, so it was probably about time I did something.

"What do you mean? Do you think I'd hesitate after every—" "Even if that's the real Siesta's body?"

 That's why her will won't ever die

"The real…Ma'am…?"

When Charlie heard that, she stopped moving.

Her mind seemed to be racing. As she stared at SIESTA, her eyes were both steady and uncertain.

"You'd figured it out?" The first one to move in that deadlocked situation was SIESTA. "Kimihiko, when did you notice?"

She was still on her knees, and she didn't turn to look at me as she spoke. From the way she phrased the question, though, she'd already admitted that my guess was correct.

"I'm not sure when it was. The things that tipped me off were really vague, though."

If they pressed me for a clear reason, I didn't have one to give.

It might have been the familiar scent I'd had near me for three years, or the warmth of her skin when we happened to touch. It could have been the thought that no mechanical doll could give a sudden, hundred-million-watt smile like that. In other words, I'd had the contradictory hunch that, some way, somehow, this was absolutely Siesta.

"You're correct," SIESTA told me quietly.

I knew it. She really was the ace detective I'd spent those three years with, through good times and bad. However, her mind had stayed in her heart, and that had gone to Natsunagi. Only this body, her physical shell, was Siesta's.

"After that final battle with Hel, Mistress Siesta's body was frozen," SIESTA told us quietly. "It was what she had wanted. In accordance with a promise they'd made in advance, a certain individual put it in cryo-storage. Then, using Mistress Siesta's vast knowledge and memories as a database, they loaded an artificial intelligence into her brain and spinal cord, then equipped the body with an artificial heart. That is how I was born."

"…So that's what happened…" All I could do was nod.

Even after death, Siesta found a way to be revived as an android and watched for an opportunity to contact us. She'd done it in order to pass the memories of last year's tragedy onto us and to help us wipe out SPES.

"Somehow I thought that might be what it was," Charlie said. "I didn't spend as much time with Ma'am as Kimizuka did, but even I remember her scent."

Come to think of it, Charlie had sniffed a lot of pillows when we were living in the hideout. Had she picked up on the faint, lingering traces of Siesta?

"—Still," she went on. "So what? Even if your body is Ma'am's, that doesn't change my mission. I'll defeat SPES in her place."

Charlie's gun was still pointed at SIESTA's forehead. However, a single tear trickled from her blazing eyes. "I mean, look. Nagisa could never kill Yui. That means I have to do it. By defeating Seed, I'll carry out Ma'am's last wish—"

The muzzle of her gun was trembling slightly, as if to match the quiver in her voice.

I see. Yeah, Charlie, you really were that type of girl.

She'd said she didn't need friends, and yet she'd continued to make Siesta her top priority… Then, somewhere along the way, Siesta's influence had pulled her to protect other people.

She was trying to carry out Siesta's last wish, trying to keep Natsunagi from getting her hands dirty, and really worrying about Saikawa, her target. The disconnect between her mission and what she felt was messing her up to the point where she was even looking to me, her sworn enemy, for support.

Geez. She was as clumsy as ever. She hadn't changed a bit since our first meeting. She was just like she had been for those two and a half years, when we'd fought so much we got sick of it.

Our stubborn bond had rotted to the point of snapping, but somehow it was

still here. Sighing, I turned to Charlie just one more time. "Are you sure you're okay with that?"

"…! What do you know, anyway? You spent all that time just spacing out." "Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry about that."

The fact that I'd been missing memories was no excuse. After Siesta's death, I'd spent a full year soaking in lukewarm water, savoring a counterfeit peace, and I really couldn't talk.

But… I said them anyway. Her last words.

"The legacy Siesta left was me, Natsunagi, Saikawa, and you, Charlie. All four of us. If you want to carry out Siesta's last wish—Saikawa can't die."

It wasn't just Saikawa, of course.

We couldn't lose me or Natsunagi or Charlie either. Not a single one of us. "…! But Ma'am is a Tuner. Her mission is to defeat SPES!"

Yeah, that's right. As the ace detective, Siesta had fought threats to the world. There was no doubt about that.

But.

"Charlie. Would the teacher you loved have prioritized protecting her mission, or her friends?"

"…!" Charlie's face crumpled.

"Do you really think defeating SPES by sacrificing Saikawa is how Siesta wants this to end?"

"Shut up…!"

Charlie yanked the pendant from her neck, snapping the chain. It was almost like a symbolic gesture to help her look away from the past, and from Siesta. She flung the pendant to the ground—but the charm popped open, exposing the photograph inside.

"…Why is she smiling like that?"

The photo showed Charlie and Siesta, and they were both smiling. It was as if they had no missions, nothing tying them down. It was a peaceful photo, something they might have taken to post online on their way home from school.

"This is, this is just—!"

Charlie shook her head. Acknowledging Siesta's smile would put her

current mission on shaky ground. It would mean denying Siesta's last wish, the one she'd believed in all this time.

And so, as if she was saying goodbye to the past and to Siesta, Charlie brought her foot down on the pendant.

"…!"

Or tried to.

Before she could do it, SIESTA slid her right hand in between Charlie's foot and the ground.

"…Ow."

"Oh— I'm sor…ry…"

SIESTA's objection was so calm that Charlie apologized on reflex. SIESTA picked up the pendant, put her hands around Charlie's neck, and tied the broken chain back together.

"Why…?" Charlie stared at her, dumbfounded.

Turning to face her again, Siesta sighed. "I swear…" Then she said it. "Are you stupid?"

It was a phrase only the former ace detective had been allowed to say. Of course she wasn't here, in SIESTA.

Her mind was with her heart, in Natsunagi. Even so.

Her body, or her brain, or her mouth, must have remembered those words. For three years, she'd said them practically every day, and now SIESTA had just—

"That's the first time." Charlie lowered her head, as if she was struggling to contain some emotion. For a few seconds, she seemed to be thinking about it, and then— "That's the first time you ever said those words to me."

When Charlie raised her head again, her tearful face was radiant. She looked like an apprentice who'd always longed for her teacher to get angry at her.

As she watched Charlie, SIESTA's expression softened into a wry smile. She spread her arms, and just as Charlie was about to dive into them—

"Charlotte. This is why I keep telling you you're simple."

What connected with SIESTA's chest was not Charlie, but a bullet.

"…!"

"Ma'am!"

SIESTA crumpled where she stood, and Charlie caught her in her arms. Beyond them stood the Assassin—Fuubi Kase.